Single-frequency excitation wideband MRI (SE-WMRI)

Purpose: In this study, single-frequency excitation wideband magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (SE-WMRI) was proposed to obtain high-quality accelerated images by reducing phase-encoding steps while applying separation gradients. Methods: A zig-zag k-space trajectory with reduced phase-encoding steps and an increased readout sampling rate was proposed. A unique gradient design with buffer intervals near the trajectory turns was employed to avoid undersampling and image artifacts. A gridding method and Fourier transform were used for image reconstruction. Quantitative analysis was performed on phantom images to investigate the characteristics of the acceleration method. Results: The proposed method showed evident improvements in the accelerated phantom images, substantially reducing the ringing and blurring artifacts found using previous methods. Furthermore, the accelerated images exhibited the same signal-to-noise ratio as standard imaging. The accelerated in vivo experiment also produced the same quality as standard imaging. Conclusions: The proposed SE-WMRI method can effectively remove image artifacts and acquire images of higher temporal or spatial resolutions with less compromise.